Last month, we mentioned the Rustic Bunting found in San Francisco's popular Golden Gate Park on 7 December.
That rarity would have normally been our profiled rarity-of-the-month,
but Common Cranes in both Texas and New Mexico took the honors last
month.

Well, the Rustic Bunting conveniently stayed through January, and we can now give it the full attention it justly deserves.

The
species breeds from northern Scandinavia east across Eurasia to
Kamchatka and northern Sakhalin. Rustic Buntings will winter mainly in
eastern China, Korea, and Japan. It is a rare but almost regular vagrant
to Alaska, particular in the Aleutians and Pribilofs, but it has been
seen elsewhere on the West Coast in British Columbia, Washington, and
Oregon, as well as about a half-dozen reports by now from California,
starting in 1984.

The
Golden Gate Park Rustic Bunting, associating with sparrows and juncos,
was originally reported by Alan Hopkins. The bird continued regularly
near the southeast intersection of Nancy Pelosi Drive and Martin Luther
King Jr. Drive and by the Big Rec Ball Fields area, across the street
from the California Academy of Sciences. It was often found on
brushpiles, grass, and perched in nearby trees.

One
of the exciting things about this Rustic Bunting has been its
accessibility at a well-known and popular location. People from near and
far - whether on a business trip to San Francisco, on a family
vacation, traveling and birding from across California or across the
country, or just curious local folks from the Bay area starting a
birding interest - have enjoyed this rare bird.

On Sunday
afternoon, 11 January, Rich Kostecke found and photographed a Striped
Sparrow, a Mexican species, in eastern Williamson County, Texas. This is
northeast of Austin.

There
is no doubt about the identification of the bird, but its origins are
far more difficult to determine. The species, native to Mexico, is known
to be very sedentary. It's a species that is endemic to the northwest
and central Mexican highlands. The closest this range gets to Williamson
County, Texas, is the boundary between the Mexican states of Sonora and
Chihuahua, about 700 rugged miles away.

The
Striped Sparrow associated with a large number of other sparrows -
Lincoln's, Harris's, White-crowned, etc. - as well as Northern
Cardinals, and Red-winged Blackbirds along a 200-yard stretch of a rural
roadside. Visiting birders - many traveling from afar - would regularly
stand on one side of the road and look across the way to review the
selection of sparrows and other birds on the opposite side of the road.
(Some birders even arrived to the site early in morning darkness, ready
with birdseed and eager to prime the area along the roadside. Yes, it
worked.) The Striped Sparrow remained throughout the month, observed and
well-photographed by birders almost daily.

In
mid-January, a large forest management and habitat conservation effort
was announced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that will target
improvements on approximately 64,000 acres of key habitat in the Great
Lake states of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. One of the key
anticipated outcomes should be avoiding the necessity of listing the
imperiled Golden-winged Warbler under the Endangered Species Act.

This
tri-state project is scheduled to begin later this year with funding
available through 2019. The project will be managed in partnership
between the Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation
Service (NRCS) and the American Bird Conservancy. It is complemented by
work being conducted on lands by these and other partners with support
from the Minnesota's Outdoor Heritage Fund.

The
Golden-winged Warbler, which depends on the conservation of key habitat
- early successional, or "young," forest habitat - for breeding, has
suffered one of the steepest population declines of any North American
songbird species. This warbler has shown a decline of more than three
percent annually over the last 40 years. Beyond the early-successional
issue, other factors contributing to the decline may be suburban sprawl,
competition from and hybridization with Blue-winged Warblers, cowbird
parasitism, and the loss of wintering habitat in Central and South
America.

Basically,
however, "this is the poster-bird for recovery of early successional
forest habitat," according to George Fenwick, President of the American
Bird Conservancy. The new project is expected to create breeding habitat
for 1,180 pairs of Golden-winged Warblers and potentially result in an
increase of 16,000 individuals within four years.

This
will be achieved by providing technical support to private landowners
whose properties lie within designated focal areas, helping landowners
develop and implement conservation management plans for their
properties. Similar to other NRCS programs, financial assistance will be
available to qualifying landowners.

In
addition to benefiting the warbler, the restoration effort is expected
to aid preservation of other bird species such as American Woodcock,
Ruffed Grouse, and Black-billed Cuckoo.

To
say that a Guide to Troubled Birds (Penguin, 2014) is "different" or
even "strange" would be an understatement. You might try "off-kilter,"
"peculiar," "screwy," "spaced-out," or "weird." No, you would probably
still come up short.

Illustrated
and written by Matt Adrian (aka "The Mincing Mockingbird"), this book
allows the reader to experience tales of drug abuse, murder, assault,
uncontrolled obesity, infidelity, and general sinister behavior among
birds.

The
slim volume is deemed "an illustrated pocket field guide that enables
anyone to quickly identify psychotic, violent, or mentally unstable bird
species," a book additionally useful "in the event of an infant or
small child being torn apart by a murder of crows."

A
mere 64 pages, this dark little work into the reptilian brains and
reprehensible behavior of birds can be finished in about 30 minutes. The
problem is, you'll go back to it. And read it to your friends. And
simply cry laughing.

Reportedly,
the author's scientific works have been spitefully ignored throughout
his career. And an award "received in Paris turned out - upon
translation - to be a restraining order."

Enough said.

ACCESS MATTERS: A PRIVATE KEY WEST QUAIL-DOVE

A rare Key West Quail-Dove was found by Rangel Diaz on 28 December
at the Deering Estate at Cutler, south of Miami, Florida. Access became
an immediate issue, since the bird was discovered on a private part of
the property, closed to the general public. Here are details on the
unique Deering Estate at Cutler:

The
bird is a Caribbean species, quite rare in South Florida, including the
Keys. The fact that the Key West Quail-Dove is also secretive, doesn't
help in finding it, either.

Rangel
Diaz made arrangements to lead early-morning trips into the property,
meeting at the Deering Estate at Cutler Visitor Center parking lot to
begin the search down the trail (the estate does not officially open
until 10am.).
Rangel led these essential morning trips to help birders. The Key West
Quail-Dove was seen for the next four mornings, and then again on 5 and 9
January. (Birders were entrusted to pay the regular admission fee to
the estate on their way out.)

This
kind of accommodation and planning is becoming increasingly important
to birders. The information on this Key West Quail-Dove might just as
easily have been suppressed, with nobody allowed in early or at all on
this part of the estate. Instead, a solution was found and birders
discovered once again that it is access that really matters.

Curiously,
at about the same time in the Keys, there were up to three other of
these rare Key West Quail-Doves seen off and on at Long Key State Park.
These began being seen in llate September. Again, these birds were often
difficult to find, alternately shy and skittish in the dark underbrush
and leaf-litter of the park. One or another was seen irregularly through
much of December and January.

IBA NEWS: BUTTERBREDT SPRING

An
important Mojave Desert migrant hotspot, Butterbredt Spring, in Kern
County, is finally in conservation ownership. That began on 12 December
2014 when the California Department of Parks & Recreation's
Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) Trust Fund completed a long-anticipated
purchase of 25,316 acres of the Onyx Ranch. The acquisition includes
Butterbredt Spring and surrounding desert scrub private lands
checkerboard surrounding Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands.

Butterbredt
Spring is a desert oasis long popular with California birders as an
outstanding migrant trap, especially in spring. In fact, Santa Monica
Bay Audubon and other volunteers have helped maintain a cooperative
relationship with the land's owners for years. The location is an eBird
hotspot:

Butterbredt
Spring is considered by the American Bird Conservancy as an Important
Bird Area. The location, at the north end of the Mojave Desert, includes
Butterbredt Spring in a transition zone and part of a necklace of
protected areas including Audubon California's Kern River Preserve and
other public lands along the South Kern River. For additional details,
see here:

In
the coming years, California State Parks will undergo a planning
process to determine areas suitable for OHV use, habitat conservation,
continued livestock grazing, and a host of other issues. This is where
the birding community can weigh in, ensuring that State Parks manages
much of these lands for birds and other wildlife.

Now, here is further evidence of concern for the last of those species, Cassin's Auklet.

Over
the Christmas/New-Year holiday, thousands of dead Cassin's Auklets were
found on the outer coasts of Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii in
Canada. Bird Studies Canada's British Columbia office received reports
of more than 100 of these seabirds per kilometer on some beaches. Most
of the birds were young-of-the-year individuals.

Unfortunately, similar events have been occurring since October along the Pacific Coast, as far south as California.

From
Washington, for example, more than 700 dead auklets were discovered on
beaches in December. And this followed high mortality evidence for
October and November.

On
the Oregon coast, Herman Biederbeck, biologist for the Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife, remarked that "we have seabird die-offs
in the fall and early winter every year, but this year we're seeing
elevated numbers."

And in California,emaciated
Cassin's Auklets have been washing ashore in Sonoma County and along a
swath of California coastline since early November. This was after a
period of ocean warming in the region and disappearance of the tiny
krill that provide their main source of food.

There
are no signs of oiling or poisoning. Evidence strongly suggests that
young auklets starved at sea and were washed ashore by strong winds.
Higher than usual nesting success in 2014 at the main colonies in the
region (e.g., from Triangle Island, BC and in the Haida Gwaii region,
south to the Farallon Islands) may be an important factor. Increased
studies of ocean temperatures and zooplankton abundance should shed
light on what could be causing these deaths.

Click here to watch a five-minute CBC News Vancouver report, including an interview with Bird Studies Canada British Columbia Program Manager Dr. David Bradley:

As
suggested above, seabirds may be viewed as critical "sentinel species,"
indicators of coastal habitat health. Through a process called "species
distribution modeling," the status of many seabirds and their
salt-water avian neighbors can be assessed. What is needed, however,
would be massive amounts of data.

Enter
citizen science. Washington State researchers, led by NOAA conservation
biologist Eric J. Ward, used data collected from the Puget Sound
Seabird Survey, to determine that things may be looking up for several
Puget Sound waterbird species historically in decline.

The
study focused on eighteen species - including alcids, cormorants,
loons, grebes, and waterfowl - at 62 Puget Sound sites. Ward and his
colleagues used seven years' worth of citizen science data from the
Puget Sound Seabird Survey.

After
putting the data through various statistical functions, the researchers
discovered that 14 species were actually increasing. The remaining four
species - Brant, White-winged Scoter, Western Grebe, and Red-necked
Grebe - appeared to be in decline, consistent with historical records.
These decline trends could reflect shifting food sources, habitat loss,
or nesting-area threats.

The work also highlighted several hotspots for different species, data that may help identify critical conservation areas.

Although
many of these birds in the Puget Sound region are "thought to be
depleted relative to abundances in the 1960s-1970s," write the
researchers, "our results present a more optimistic picture for a number
of species over the last decade."

Perhaps
most importantly, none of this would have been conceivable without the
participation of enthusiastic volunteer birders. "You could never do
this [work] with staff people. You'd never have the budget to send out
this many people so consistently for so many years," said Toby Ross,
Science Manager at Seattle Audubon and a co-author of the study.

You can access the original study, published in the open-access journal PeerJ in late October, here:

On 17 December,
President Barack Obama surprised the world when he announced that he
was moving to reestablish diplomatic relation with Cuba and to loosen
some trade and travel restrictions with the island. (Diplomatic
relations between the U.S. and Cuba were broken by President Eisenhower
just over 54 years ago, on 3 January 1961.) The long-standing U.S. trade
embargo may eventually be dropped.

Thankfully,
about 20 percent of Cuba's landscape has been set aside as national
parks and natural areas. While this helps to preserve biodiversity,
there are limited funds available for ongoing protection, management,
surveys, or research. One aspect of moving toward better relations and
even dropping the embargo will surely be increases in tourism on the
island. Likewise, there will almost inevitably be increasing development
pressure on sensitive environments - e.g., attractive mountains,
coastal marshes, and shoreline habitat.

Of
course, the Cuban government already has a serious tourism emphasis in
pursuit of hard currency, with many foreign visitors visiting such huge
vacation resorts as Cayo Coco and Veradero.

From
a natural resource viewpoint, there should be a need for cooperation
with Cuba for migratory bird conservation as the diplomatic process
unfolds. The United States has an international treaty for conservation
of migratory birds with Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Russia (formerly with
the USSR). This is the Migratory Bird Treaty - signed in 1916, ratified
in 1918, and developed since with multiple signatories. Alas, Cuba is
not currently included in the multi-national treaty.

Since the administration is officially seeking "modest goals of cooperation," we present here a potential bird connection.

The
centennial of the Migratory Bird Treaty (originally signed in 1916 with
Great Britain, standing in for Canada) is next year. Wouldn't it be
grand next year to have Cuba join in that treaty to protect our commonly
held resource, migratory birds?

Such an action would surely take some serious work from all parties, including input from non-governmental entities.

Already,
there are bird-oriented "people-to-people" connections we have with
Cuba, as well as approved "ongoing research" efforts. Perhaps now is the
time for concentrated "migratory-bird diplomacy" with Cuba, deeper
engagement and experimentation to accompany any closer relations between
the two countries. It would be a constructive and modest step, a
companion to establishing full diplomatic and economic relations.

U.S. SHOREBIRDS OF CONSERVATION CONCERN

In our last issue we reported on the listing of the rufa Red Knot as officially Threatened under the Endangered Species Act:

Now we report on a broader assessment on the status of U.S. shorebirds.

Last
month, the U.S. Shorebird Conservation Partnership (USSCP) released its
most recent findings assessing the status of U.S. shorebirds in
"Shorebirds of Conservation Concern." This updates the USSCP's 2004 plan
and contains many more details. The assessment incorporates: 1) new
information on shorebird population sizes and trends, 2) a GIS
computation of breeding and nonbreeding range sizes, 3) a revised
threats assessment, and 4) climate change vulnerability.

February
is a perfect time to introduce new people to birds. Some folks think
that spring migration - say, May - is the ideal time, but this is
probably a mistake. Indeed, birds in migration are wonderful - in full
color and song - but the experience can be too overwhelming, a veritable
bird overload. Too much in the way of birds - or of any new experience -
can actually discourage people, creating the perception that there is
simply too much to learn!

This
month is ideal for a modest and digestible introduction to birds.
Winter birds are stable, relatively limited, and often wonderfully
accessible. Take wintering waterfowl, or a popular staked-out (but
non-harassed) Snowy Owl. It's the right time to bring along a neighbor
or friend - who may already be curious because of a backyard feeder -
for a short and simple birding trip.

This opportunity also conveniently overlaps with the 18th annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC), 13-16 February.
This effort is sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the
National Audubon Society. Tens of thousands of volunteers - of all ages
and birding skill levels - will count birds in backyards, local parks,
refuges, and wherever they happen to be. This free, family-friendly, and
neighbor-friendly activity is an ideal introductory "citizen-science"
effort involving bird discovery. Visit the GBBC website to explore the
opportunities:

All
these opportunities combine to make February the time to invite some
new people - family, friends, co-workers, or acquaintances - to join in a
bird search and introduce them to the joy of watching and studying wild
birds.

LWCF: AN ALMOST-VICTORY

On
29 January, a bipartisan majority of the Senate voted in favor of
permanently reauthorizing the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).
Although the action passed with a 59-39 vote, that majority is still one
vote short of the needed 60-vote threshold necessary these days in the
Senate.

Just
over 50 years ago, Congress passed the Land and Water Conservation Fund
Act, intended to provide $900 million a year from offshore oil and gas
royalties for federal, state, and local parks, refuges, and forests and
to enhance local recreational opportunities.

Still,
the recent close vote is a symbolic win for conservation and outdoor
heritage voices. Such symbolism will soon need a reality boost. Unless
Congress acts, LWCF will expire at the end of September.

ARCTIC NWR PROTECTION

And
finally, if you returned from a two-week trip to the Amazon, without
access to newspapers, telephone, or the Internet, you might not have
heard. But on 25 January, President Obama announced new protections for
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, and he is recommending to
Congress that 12.28 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge, including the coastal plain, be designated as official
Wilderness, the highest level of protection for public lands, under the
Wilderness Act.

The
announcement came as a new Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP) was
released. This is a 15-year plan that details how the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge is to be managed. Official Wilderness designation is up
to Congress, and although only Congress can designate

Wilderness,
this Presidential proposal means the areas will be managed as
Wilderness until there is a formal Congressional designation.

For
more than three decades, the refuge's coastal plain has been at the
center of an ongoing debate over oil and natural gas drilling.
Designating the coastal plain and other areas of the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge as Wilderness will ban oil and gas drilling, and other
development in those areas.

This
refuge, and especially its coastal plain, is known for a variety of
wildlife species, and among birds it is known as vital habitat for
seaducks, shorebirds, raptors, and a selection of songbirds.

A fine summary of the announcement and its implications is available here from the National Wildlife Refuge Association: